Season One
by chezchuckles
Summary: A chapter per episode of season one. Sometimes they might go AU, a what-if version, sometimes they just fill in between the blanks, sometimes it's only a reaction to the episode as a whole.
1. Flowers for Your Grave

**#1 Flowers for Your Grave**

* * *

Aren't You Curious?

xxx

 _You have no idea._

Rick Castle takes it as a promise.

He knows he's not supposed to, that it was never her intention to encourage him, only to send him on his way having had the last word, but he just can't stop thinking about it.

Her.

It.

Them.

The whole 'solving a real mystery' thing. The back and forth. Pouring over fan mail looking for a psychopath. He caught a killer, a bankrupt brother (he likes the alliteration) who had killed _three_ people just to make his father grieve a daughter's loss, just to stick it to the dying man, and in the aftermath of all this messy and complicated _story_ , Rick feels suddenly invigorated.

Inspired.

He writes all day, well into the night, nods off at the laptop only to wake again with a grunt and a reflexive tapping of keys.

He can't lose this.

He won't lose this.

 _She_ has no idea.

 **xx**

Kate Beckett takes it as a punishment.

Whatever she's done to deserve this, she doesn't know, but it's life. It's _so_ her life, isn't it? This is how it always goes for her. Two steps forward, one step back - the story of her career.

Not only is she fighting for every inch of respect she can get in this male-dominated bullpen, fighting for space to breathe outside of her mother's murder, but she's saddled with a prima dona rockstar-writer who thinks entirely too much of himself and his stupid _stories_.

And manages to delve a little too deeply into her own.

If she's being punished, then she'll set her jaw and take it on the chin.

She can endure this too. She _has_ endured. Far worse. Whatever he thinks he's got going here, she'll bide her time, hand-holding him, and then she gets to kick him to the curb when he makes his first fatal mistake. Her detectives are her top priority, not his pride.

He won't last.

 _The_ Richard Castle.

 **xx**

At home, she skims the spines of her books and tries not to wonder.

But she can't help it.

She's always been curious.

 **xx**


	2. Nanny McDead

**Nanny McDead**

 **xx**

"Where are you going?" he calls after her, surprised to see Kate walking off in the wrong direction. He hurries to catch up, the sidewalk busy with early Christmas shoppers hoping to get their errands out of the way. "Beckett. Wait up."

She pauses halfway down the street but it doesn't look like she's willing to wait for him. Her lips are in that studied set he knows so well. Foreboding.

Castle hurries, threading his way through holiday crowds, his heart choked up with all the ways their worlds don't mesh.

"Kate," he says quickly. He'll figure out a way to fix this, words that will make it all _right_ again. He captures her hand, places it in his pocket as if to keep it. "Just because our parents didn't hit it off at first doesn't mean we don't work."

She gives him a sideways look, all cool repose. "It's not that. You saw them in the precinct. They bonded - in their own way."

He lets out a breath. "They did. And that's a place to start."

"I think so." She lifts an eyebrow, clear and guileless. "Don't you?"

"Yes. Of course." He follows her down the sidewalk, keeping close. "Then... you're not coming back to my place?"

She wriggles her fingers in his pocket, withdraws her hand. A brisk shake of her head when he tries to take it back. "Not right now. I have a standing appointment I'm late for."

Appointment. He gives a petulant sigh her direction and she rolls her eyes a little even as they walk, steps into him and kisses the corner of his mouth.

She brushes two fingers at his eyebrow. "You think you're cute like that, but you're not. You just make creases in your forehead, Rick."

He huffs at her for that, splutters a little when she winks, but he's not entirely putting her on. The idea of letting her walk away tonight after what feels like a seismic shift in the balance of power in their relationship doesn't sit right with him.

"Let me come with you. I'll promise I really can stay in the car this time."

She shakes her head before he can even finish. "Not for you, this one. It's my own - issues, Castle. You know how I am. No need for you to come after me."

"No."

She shoots him an astonished look, nearly stumbles at the edge of the curb as they cross. He grips her elbow to keep her steady, but he's not backing down.

If the balance of power has at all shifted, then he hopes it puts them on a more even footing. He hopes it only allows him to say _no_ and have her capitulate when compromise is impossible.

Because sometimes compromise means neither of them are happy. And capitulation allows one inside the other's world.

"Rick."

"No. I'm going. After the night we've had, being separated is the last thing I want. That man was a wolf in sheep's clothing." He shudders dramatically. "Nightmares for weeks."

"You sleep like a baby," she scoffs.

"With you."

Her eye-roll is patented, but he can see she's already relenting.

She takes another studying look at him and then shrugs. "Alright. Don't say I didn't warn you."

 **xx**

The weathered wooden door of the Bedford house in Brooklyn swings open at Beckett's knock. The woman on the other side gives the detective a weary look, glances suspiciously at Castle. The sun is at their backs, and its long fingers reach carefully inside the narrow house, as if searching.

Kate gestures to him. "This is Rick," she says by way of introduction. "In the interests of honesty, he's also my partner at the Twelfth. He was there. He knows her mother."

He - _what?_

The older woman gives Castle a shake of her head as if to say, _isn't it a shame?,_ and gestures them inside.

"I know her mother?" he whispers to Kate, a strange and curling panic lodging in his ribs. "What mother. What-"

"Arnie," the woman calls from behind them as she shuts the door. "Arnie, bring her in. That detective's back."

"Kate," she asserts. Her voice is quiet but insistent. It sounds like an old battle.

"Back?" Castle hisses. She's been here before?

Kate swats at him, gives him a scolding look. She's stopped before a threadbare couch, has pulled a battered pink envelope from her coat pocket.

And then a toddler comes running down the long hall and into the living room, cheeks bright pink with the giggling that erupts from her open mouth. The man behind her is the same age as the woman who opened the door, mid-fifties, and he growls after the girl in play, making chase.

The girl comes to a clumsy and awe-filled stop mere inches from Kate, tilts her head back to stare. Arnie bends over and scoops up the two year old, sets her on her feet on the couch. He keeps the little girl steady with a hand, gives Kate a long once-over.

"Look who it is. Again," the man says. There's a tone to his voice that makes Castle bristle, standing a little straighter, shoulders pulled back, shoulder to Kate's.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart," Kate says. "It's just a gift card." It sounds like the worst transition ever as she shoves the folded pink envelope towards the man. The woman has crossed her arms behind them and doesn't move, doesn't speak. "For her, for you. For - Chloe's sake."

 _Chloe._

Castle does a double-take, staring down at the two year old trying to climb back into the man's arms. Bright, bouncing banana curls to her shoulders, pink cheeks, clear and brown eyes.

Chloe. The _nanny_.

"Oh my God," he croaks. "Kate."

She touches his hip and quiets him, her hand still offering the envelope.

The man finally, with a show of reluctance, takes it. And now Castle can see their resemblance to the jilted nanny from their second case together, the young woman who killed her best friend over the man they unwittingly shared.

The father of one of their charges.

And now the father of a two year old girl whom he will probably never visit. Never offer lame pink birthday cards. The one who created all this heartache really has gotten off scot-free.

He glances to the little girl. "Is Chloe-"

"We don't talk about her," the woman scrapes out from behind them. "You need to go, Detective. You've seen her. You've seen we're doing right by her. Now you need to go."

And to his astonishment, Kate does.

Rick follows her out of the house, down the four steps to the sidewalk, and he stands there in speechless horror as Kate hunches her shoulders against the wind and looks off into the winter morning light.

What a world she inhabits. And he was _there_ , he has been there, and yet he never saw, never walked these streets and approached this door.

"She was born November 29th," Kate says quietly, turns to look at him. "She turns three next week." She lets out a long breath and finally looks at him. "I don't know why I keep coming back. They hate my guts. Chloe's parents."

"I know why." He reaches out and cups the side of her face, tenderness breaking open his heart. "Because you weren't running a play, because you weren't selling that girl a story when you sympathized with her. You meant every word. And that's why I fell in love with you, Kate. Even if maybe not when."

 **xx**


	3. Hell Hath No Fury

**Hell Hath No Fury**

 **xx**

 _For a good time call 555-0179_

Castle squints and tilts his head, steps away from the sink in the men's bathroom to peer at the chipped blue paint of the metal stall.

It does, indeed, bear his phone number.

How...

His lips twist.

He returns to washing his hands, but he can't help sneaking looks at the hastily penned graffiti.

He wants to be let in on the joke, if this is actually a joke. And if not, the jackass side of him is rearing its ugly head and wanting to crash back through the Homicide bullpen and force himself into the joke, whatever and whoever is making it.

There are shades of boarding school bullying in this kind of thing - his number crudely scratched into an NYPD bathroom stall in the men's restroom no less - and even though he knows he's not there, a skinny scholarship kid with his ears burning red at the things the older boys are saying about his mother, he's still worked hard to maintain a certain level of immaturity, and this is right up there.

No punctuation, which irritates him in a different way, and he can think of three lines which would have been better, packed a better punch or felt a little more clever, but he's not in on this joke.

He's on the outside of things.

Rick Castle dries his hands methodically to give himself a moment, and then he pushes open the swinging door and steps directly into the two detectives who've been dogging Beckett's heels this whole case.

Ryan on the left. Esposito on the right. Esposito has an arm draped on Ryan's shoulder, a smirk equally casual and studied. He flattens his tie to his shirt. Ryan has his arms crossed, a v-neck sweater looking entirely wrong for his body type and profession.

Sweater _vests_. He would cut a fine figure in a sweater vest. Not many can get away with it. "To what do I owe the pleasure, gentlemen?" he says. "Come to offer your gratitude for the expensive addition to your break room?"

Esposito's face blanks, goes carefully guarded as he tries to unknot the dense vocabulary of Castle's sentence construction.

But Ryan grins. Ignores his reference to the espresso machine entirely. And nods his head back towards the bathroom.

Ah. And now Rick has been let in on the joke.

"We figured since you had a date with a prostitute, you were up for it." Ryan delivers his line with a bit of squirming earnestness that belies the 'cool-bro' exterior.

Castle's lips twitch.

Esposito straightens up. Holds up a black Sharpie. "And then I made Ryan run into the women's. Middle stall - it's the only one that will flush - but he had to be fast. Avoid detection."

Castle enjoys the play on words. Detection. He has a feeling this detective did make the pun knowingly. But the man is grinning - he's _also_ trying too hard, just like Ryan.

"So you better not be screening your calls," Esposito tells him, taps the Sharpie against his chest and lets it go. "You'll only get one shot with you know who."

You know-?

Rick catches the pen, clasps it to him. At that moment, Detective Beckett strides out of the women's bathroom at the other end of the hall, a look on her face that he can't at all identify.

Ryan cackles but ducks behind his partner.

Esposito rubs his hands together, gestures between himself and Beckett. "Better than shark week," he says, and walks off.

Castle is one of the boys.

He's never _been_ one of the boys before.

 **xxx**


	4. Hedge Fund Homeboys

**Hedge Fund Homeboys**

 **xxx**

Damn. She hates it when he upends her cases.

He's three consultations in, and already she's filed more paperwork than not trying to reverse manslaughter charges for those she keeps wrongly accusing. (She's going to have to learn to slow down with him, wait on these fantastic leaps of logic he comes through with that nevertheless lead to a solve.)

But the way he turns his face away. When the kid, Max, pulls the trigger on Donny, and the bullet impacts Donny's chest and the body falls back - Castle's eyes are resolutely not looking.

And he doesn't look at her either.

He doesn't rally so much as fight back. She can see it in his quick movements, how much the video of a boy murdered before their very eyes galvanizes him, spurs him on towards justice. He might be here for the story. He might be upending her cases, but he follows through, and three consultations ago, she wouldn't have guessed that.

When she goes home after booking Brandon for Max and Donny's murders, she wonders what happens to Castle when he goes home. She has the enclosing walls and comfortable furniture, she has her usual routines and her familiar mementos. And aloneness, and quiet.

And the satisfying taste of justice on her tongue. Just a taste. Enough to keep her going.

She's met his mother and his daughter, and she remembers his ex-wife (second ex) from the rooftop book release party. She knows he's supposed to be writing about this character, unaptly named, but she wonders what else there is for him. If it's enough.

It must be. All those best-sellers.

She calls her father, because she's intentional about their relationship after years of therapy, and it always pays off these days. Her father can offer advice or simply tease her until her mood clears, and when she hangs up tonight, it's not contentment but it's close.

But unlike Castle, she couldn't look away. Wouldn't do Max or Donny the dishonor of closing her eyes to those last moments. She watched the entirety of the video, the shock in both boys' eyes, the way Donny's body fell back, his feet flying up, his tumble over the bench. The screams from the girls, and Max as well, as they saw the fatal shot, the light go out in Donny's eyes.

Beckett witnessed it in its entirety, and now it runs like a film strip behind her eyes. Edited into the reel is Max's mother's dawning horror when Kate reacted badly to the news of Max's body (she knows better, she's usually better at schooling her face; another thing Rick Castle can be blamed for).

Enough.

Enough of this tonight. She solved a difficult and complex case that most other detectives would have called open and shut. She placed hard evidence in the ADA's hands, giving him enough that Brandon's lawyer is even counseling the kid's parents to ask for a plea deal. She's done very well.

With his help.

 **xxx**

When he opens the door and comes inside, he lifts a hand to brush his hair down from the wind. He looks every inch the playboy, but she sees his eyes are tired.

He scans the bar looking for her and she lifts a finger to signal him, which also, awkwardly, brings the bartender her way. The two approach at the same moment, the bartender too busy to take proper notice, Rick Castle too weary to collect himself in time and give his order.

Beckett orders for him, scotch and soda, though she sees the faint lines at the corners of his eyes as he winces at her selection. She calls the bartender back and asks for his scotch straight up, and Castle settles onto the stool beside her and puts his elbows on the wood grain of the bar.

"What do I owe the honor?" he says. The fake smile.

"A grainy video on a phone," she says honestly, and knocks back the last of her screwball.

He studies her a moment, then turns when the bartender plunks the drink down. He picks up his own glass to nurse it, nodding to her. She puts her hand over her tumbler to keep the bartender from refilling it, and then she props herself up on her elbows as well, sinking into the moment.

When he remains silent, she marvels at his ability to get her to talk even while she opens her mouth to speak. "They're not always this bad," she promises.

"You don't have to reassure me," he answers. "I can handle it."

She stiffens, tries not to be offended by his taking offense. "I mean me. Stop thinking everything is about you, Ricky. It's not."

"Oh." But his face falls and his eyes drop to the glass, and before she can scowl and offer some kind of lame apology, he tips the glass into his mouth and drains the scotch.

He can handle his alcohol, and she finds herself grateful for that.

"Another?" he asks, lifting his glass already for the bartender.

She shakes her head in negation, slides her glass away from him in case he tries to be a jackass and refill it anyway. He does, she sees him make a movement, but he stops and assesses her, and then when his own refill is poured, he doesn't drink it.

She hopes he doesn't see as much of her as he seems to, but she's probably wishing for horses.

He traces his fingers on the wood. "So you're telling me you've been extra lucky, these last few cases? The real heartbreakers."

"Is your heart broken?"

"I can admit it when it is," he says, which isn't admitting it at all.

But she can see how tired his eyes are. "Have you been writing?"

"A lot," he nods.

"Good?"

"I think so, obviously. But time will tell. Detective Esposito says you made him and Ryan read through all my books."

"Traitor."

He grins, the smarmy one she hates. "He only told me accidentally. He kept quoting my own writing at me. A best-selling author can pick out his own lines when they're being hurled at his head in imprecation."

"Ah, and now I've confirmed it."

"Yes. Precisely. Also, you've confirmed, by the cursing - almost cursing - that you hold, in your own personal library, copies of my novels which are near and dear to your heart-"

"You wish."

"I do." His eyebrows dance. "Very much wish."

She rolls her eyes, but she's buoyed. Bucked up in a way the alcohol can never do for her, not with her family history and not with her brain chemistry.

"Shall we go through each one, Beckett, line by line if you wish, and you can have a personal Q&A session with the author-"

"Shut up, Castle."

He grins even wider, but the smarmy has gone up like smoke. Like coal to a diamond, actually, the twist of his lips from sneer to sunny, and she's basking in it.

Time to go.

"Thanks for showing up, but it's time to get home," she says, sliding off the stool and standing up now.

He doesn't protest, just takes her elbow as she moves, lets her go once he understands she's entirely steady.

"You weren't drinking," he says.

"No."

He regards her, nods. "You know I'll find out the story."

"I know."

But she leaves him at the bar, having spoken maybe five minutes in all, and she doesn't feel bad for having called him out of his own home for it.

Besides, he came.

 **xxx**

 **A/N:** When I went to look up the list of Castle episodes on wikipedia, it has this one occurring third and Hell Hath No Fury occurring fourth. I swear my Season 1 DVD has those switched. Now I'm completely at a loss - the air dates has them switched, but my DVD has them in a different order (which means I've done every single rewatch in the wrong order). Mind blown.

All that to say, the details in this response scene would have to be altered depending on the air dates versus DVD line-up. He's not three cases in, he's only two, etc. So let's not ruin my story with wikipedia's logic, yes?


	5. A Chill Goes Through Her Veins

**A Chill Goes Through Her Veins**

 **xxx**

When her desk phone rings at near quitting time, Beckett debates not answering it.

A spurt of self-disgust has her reaching for the receiver instead, putting it to her ear as she tilts back in her chair. "Beckett," she answers.

"I need you."

Her chair thumps forward; blood drains from her face only to flush hotly in her chest. "What?"

"Tit for tat, Detective."

"Castle," she says harshly. But what her heart thunders in her veins is _not here._

"Come on. When you got stuck with your murder, you came to me for help. So now _I'm_ stuck, and I need your help."

"My help," she echoes, opening her eyes once more. "With your murder. Don't you have that fancy board, Batman?"

"Oh, ha, ha," he huffs. "Be serious. You're the only one even qualified to help me here. Don't leave me hanging."

She sinks back in her desk chair and tilts her head to the ceiling. "Okay, disregarding the numerous ways that _don't leave me hanging_ could be misconstrued-" She gets a laugh for that. "-Fine. But I have to warn you, Castle. If this is about red herrings or plot devices, I'm not going to do you any good. Most of mine are straight-forward. You only see the weird ones."

"It's not about red herrings in the main mystery plot. It's - okay, look, don't hate me. I tried but it was impossible. I'm sorry. I am _so_ sorry."

"Don't be _sorry,_ " she cries out, lurching forward in the chair. _Be better._

Castle blows a whistle over the phone and it breaks her instinctive self-defense, that old call and response that he isn't even a part of. Her father's issues aren't in play here, only research for a book.

"Calm down there, Sherlock. I can tell I've hit a trigger."

She could strangle him. Cheerfully. "Don't call me Sherlock. Sherlock isn't a detective, he's a consultant to the police. If anything, you would be Sherlock."

"I'm honored."

She rolls her eyes. "Castle. What do you need?" And then remembering his apology, "Or should I say, What did you do?"

"I went for substance," he says quickly.

Substance.

Her mother's murder.

"I'm sorry," he goes on, "but Nikki is the best thing I've written in years, Beckett, and this has to be in the book. Everything makes sense - Nikki makes sense."

Beckett bows her head and pinches the bridge of her nose. "You put my mom's murder in your book."

"When you say it like that it makes it sound so tawdry."

"Castle," she mewls.

"I know, I know. I told you I cannibalize my life, people's lives, and put them in my writing. It's a curse. My mother is always on a tear about it, how unflattering it makes her look. Of course, most of the time she only thinks she's in my novel. Bit self-aggrandizing there-"

"Castle," she snaps. "My _mother_."

"The details aren't the same, Beckett. And I haven't sensationalized it. I didn't even make it melodramatic. It's well-handled, I promise."

"Then what is your problem," she hisses.

He croaks something and splutters over the line.

She rolls her eyes, still trying to adjust to the uncomfortable truth of her mother's murder being fodder for a potential best-seller. Millions of people might read about how Kate Beckett keeps mementoes of tragedy and has to visibly collect herself when she runs up against similar cases. "Castle, you called me, remember? You said you were stuck."

"Oh, yes, I am. I'm stuck. I can't figure out _why_. There's no motive for a murder like this where nothing is taken, no sexual assault. I've _never_ written a murder I didn't know who did it. I can't figure it out; there's just nothing there. There aren't even any clues. It doesn't make _sense._ "

Beckett gives a long sigh and sinks her chin in her hand, closes her eyes. "Welcome to my world, Rick."

Silence reins.

When enough heartbeats have passed that she knows her voice will be steady, she does her best. "Look. Something like this, it's backstory. It's not the A plot, it's one ingredient in the general morass. You don't have to have the answer right now. I know it doesn't feel like that, it's not how you like it to be done, but just because it drives the character doesn't mean it drives your story."

She can hear him swallow. "How do you live with this?" he husks.

She takes a breath, feels for the ring under her shirt. "There really isn't any other choice."

His noise sounds displeased. "Although. She's better for it." A pause. "Nikki Heat."

Beckett bobs her head. "I'm not sure I've helped."

"No, you did." There's a crackle, the sound of a body shifting. "You've helped immensely."

 _So have you._

 **xxx**


	6. Always Buy Retail

**Always Buy Retail**

 **xxx**

He was lying really, saying something clever to get a laugh. He's never had that dream, the one where he's naked and she's calling him kitten and his ex-wife is sliding into the scene for a threesome. He usually says clever things for a laugh, and laughter is just so good, especially hers, especially hers, that he doesn't think another thing of it.

Until that night.

He expected the bullets. The nightmarish quality of the gunfight, of shoving a police detective to the ground and scrambling around behind a kitchen island only to watch her pop her head up for a clear view and the way glass just _exploded_ around them, _keep your head down_ -

That he definitely expected.

He wakes shouting and is immediately embarrassed, hopes no one upstairs heard him, rolls over to a cool spot on the sheets and sinks right back down into sleep.

The bullets are back, but in moments the nightmare morphs into a strangely erotic inscape. Beckett crouches beside him, pushing his head down as he tries to get a good angle with his camera phone, hoping to show her the view. Instead, as his head goes down, he discovers, to his initial horror, he's naked.

He's _naked_ and there are bullets flying over his head, glass shattering, and he's naked.

And then her hand pushes his head down and he plants face-first in her lap.

Oh.

Oh, and she's naked too.

"Hurry up, kitten. I've only got two rounds left."

Oh, God.

She smells so good.

 **xxx**

He has trouble looking at her when he shows up at the crime scene. And then he has trouble _not_ looking at her. It's all he _can_ do, look at her. Everything about her, from the way her right ear tilts to sit back on her head instead of upright (she looks like a pixie, somehow, that hair pushed behind her misshapen ears) to the flare of her hips in that ill-fitting black pants suit.

When she takes off the jacket in deference to the warm spring day, he catches sight of her arms, and the play of tension as she points into the distance, ordering Ryan and Espo to canvass the neighborhood.

She's gorgeous.

How did he miss that?

She's _gorgeous_.

Not just svelte and cheeky enough to put a fire in his bed, but she's self-possessed and graceful for all the tightly-reined, stick-up-her-ass behavior. The form of her face as she looks his way, the lift of her eyebrow in askance because of his silence.

"What's up with you?" she asks, her fingers curling around empty air as if jonesing for a coffee.

He should've brought her coffee this morning. "Way too early for this," he says in reply.

She rolls her eyes and turns her back on him, her jacket slung over her forearm and her hands planted on her hips.

Her shoulders are so narrow, her neck this thin long column - and so pale. It makes her lips look appealingly lush, and her _eyes._

Castle takes a step forward to come up at her side and then one more to put him past her, just so he can turn and meet her eyes.

Textured. Infinite.

He finds himself back there, at the side of her desk in the precinct, the stretched-out and brittle moment where she told him what happened to her mother that set her on this path. Her story. Do her eyes _always_ look like this? So vitally aware, so stunningly dark? The wound is there, and he saw it that first day, but everything else about her (her self-defense mechanisms), they all blinded him to the depth of that wound.

The sheer forever of that wound.

"Are you even listening?" she snaps.

He takes a step back, overwhelmed (she is far more than he bargained for), but before he can regain his composure and step forward once more, she turns away, shaking her head.

"Dr Parish, call me when you have something," she says tightly. Her steps are brisk, already pacing her away from him.

Castle hustles to catch up, to put himself back at her side, to get another long look at the angle of her jaw and the stride of her legs, the haughty just of her chin and shoulders.

But she's too fast for him. He doesn't catch up until she's already at her car.

 **xxx**


	7. Home Is Where the Heart Stops

**Home Is Where the Heart Stops**

 **xx**

When Alexis leaves for the library, Martha isn't far behind her, escaping out the front door as if fleeing the overwhelming stack of breakfast dishes.

Beckett sits up a little straighter at the bar, realizes they're somehow alone. "You want help with all this?"

Castle throws his cloth napkin onto the counter, pushes back from the island and gets up. "No need." He gives her a wide grin. "As a _friend_ , I couldn't let you do my dirty work."

She rolls her eyes at that - though she did ask him, 'as a friend,' to stay in her police car. She stands as well, folding her napkin and placing it on the counter. "I don't mind." Beckett follows him around the island to the kitchen sink, reaches for a pan still on the stove to place it beside the rest. "Got soap and stuff?"

"Under the sink, but really-"

"Castle."

He nods, stops talking. She maneuvers around him to gather the rest of the dirty dishes, realizes only after he's freezes in place that she's placed a hand at his hip to keep them from bumping into one another.

She slowly withdraws her touch. Something like tension unwinds from his body and he tosses her a crooked smile.

Oh, no. He's going to say something smarmy and absolutely ruin it.

But before he can comment, Castle winces and touches the side of his face, just above his brow. The bruise is pale, yellow and brown, and makes one eyelid crooked.

Beckett reaches out, curling her fingers around his to lightly skim the bruise. "Have you iced this?"

"Little bit yesterday," he says, his eye twitching at the nearness of her hand. Or perhaps it's just how tight the skin is here, swollen like this.

"Come on. You need ice, not standing around doing dishes."

"It's not that bad," he tries, but he does follow her to the refrigerator where she's opening the freezer side. "You can pull out the ice maker and reach in."

She hides her smile in the effort of collecting the ice cubes in her bare hand, how quickly he's given way to her. When she's turned back to him, he's opening a Ziploc bag for her. She dumps in the ice and he works on closing it while she shuts the freezer door.

"Teamwork," she says with relish, nudging him towards his seat at the bar. "You made breakfast - lots of breakfast - I can clean up while you ice that."

"You're a guest-"

"Don't be insulting," she says, poking his shoulder. "Hardly a guest. Sit down."

He obeys, though the ice dangles ineffectually from his fingers. She opens drawers until she finds a dish towel (right where she would've put them herself, if this was her kitchen), and she comes back to him at the bar with it.

He gives over the bag of ice and she folds it in the thin linen tea towel, all while he watches her. She brings the ice to the side of his face, not too gently.

He winces under the press of shifting cubes, tilts his head to one side - and into her other hand, where she has, unconsciously, raised it to keep him steady.

There's something warm and aware in the feel of his skin against her fingertips. The oil against her dry, cool fingers and the faint brush of his eyelashes at the top of her palm. She doesn't know why she's still standing here, doing for him when he can most definitely do for himself.

And then his own hand comes up to take over the job of icing his eye, just as it should be.

But instead of handing off the towel-wrapped ice, his broad palm lays over the back of her hand and his fingers curve at her knuckles. He holds her there, one eye closed and the other halfway to it, but there's not a trace of his usual charming smirk.

There's not a trace of anything. What's been stripped bare before her by this combination of a full stomach and the pain is something she didn't know existed. And she doesn't know what to do with it.

Beckett slowly works her hand out from under his, withdraws her touch from the side of his face. She folds her hands together just under her sternum, breathes slowly.

His eyes open. He straightens up. His lips begin to tilt into that slash of a smile, words about to form on his lips, and that's her cue.

Beckett turns back for the kitchen sink, knocking his hand away when he tries to snag her. "Don't push your luck, Castle. You only took a punch. Not a bullet."

He whines something she doesn't allow herself to register, and she shuts him out entirely by opening the hot water tap.

Breakfast was nice. She shouldn't push her luck either.

 **xx**


	8. Ghosts

**Ghosts**

 **xx**

He knows Beckett is amused by this. He doesn't care; this _is_ his territory, and he's worked hard to find a place among the Homicide team. Her team. So yeah, he's going to defend his territory from the likes of Lee Wax.

(Watching Beckett in interrogation today was better than watching his mother in one of her shows. Not just because the audience is allowed far more participation, but also because Beckett isn't acting. She's not giving a performance. She feels this - all of this - because of her own story.)

"Ha!" she crows, slapping her cards down. "Full house. Read 'em and weep."

"You need new lines," he grumbles, but he can't discount the thrill that chases down his spine at the sight of her popping red gummy bears into her mouth in victory. "Besides, we're _even_ now, Beckett. It's not like you're up on me."

"Oh, but I can be," she purrs, delicious and saucy and all those things he likes best about her.

The teasing from her is new lately, Detective Beckett exposing her ankles in the Victorian society of her own strict expectations. His poker games are entirely more lively than they've ever been, and he likes the way she puts him in his place even while she expects more from him.

He shuffles the deck of cards, going slowly so she can see he's not cheating, pointedly not cheating just because it's more fun to be melodramatic about it. She rolls her eyes at him and crosses her legs in her chair once more. Eats another gummy.

"You're eating your capital."

"I won it."

"You'll be losing it soon enough, and that's less for you to lose, Beckett."

"Don't tell me how to play my game, and I won't tell you how to play yours."

"That would be a worthwhile deal if I believed you'd actually stop telling me what to do."

She laughs.

It's astonishing. Her laughter in the bullpen as he finally gets her, finally batters long enough at that cool reserve to actually make her amusement bubble up out of her control. Showing ankles? She's giving him wrists now, bare fingers brushing his for a brief and tantalizing moment so that _he_ might swoon.

"Don't look so surprised, Castle." She socks his bicep and takes her cards as he deals, and he watches her fan them across her face, her eyebrows raised as she inspects them. All eyebrows, and that one dark spot just at the line of her lower eyelid which she didn't use to cover up but has lately, just as she's begun styling her hair in different ways, as if she's trying on _life_ again, one look at a time.

As they call and raise back and forth, he has just begun to read her tells when she switches them up on him, and then he begins to read these new signs only to find they're red herrings as well.

She's good.

It's fascinating to him how, in the middle of a rough case, he can see exactly how far he can push her before she's not having it any longer, but in the middle of a poker game, he has no idea what that cute wrinkled brow means or if it means anything at all.

She's _good_. She's interrogation room tactics and subtle teasing and byplay good, and he knows she's playing him somehow, some way, but he never sees it coming until it's too late.

He could spend a decade right here in this chair beside her desk and not learn all her secrets. A lifetime.

If she'll have him.

 **xx**


	9. Little Girl Lost

**Little Girl Lost**

 **xxx**

It really is a date.

Or was a date.

She changed clothes and everything, flat-ironed her hair and then curled it, touched up her make-up and applied lip gloss. She wore her heels, a pant-suit thing that Lanie assured her was sophisticated chic, and she showed up on the sidewalk at a mid-priced restaurant with her clutch.

They had dinner.

She doesn't remember much of it. Highlights. She remembers that he's an accountant, served in the Army, that his smile was too thin, that his stories were boring.

Yin, basically.

Beckett quirks her lips at herself in the mirror, studying her reflection as the water runs in the sink. She dips her head and washes her face, scrubbing the cleansing cloth over her mascara, the eyeliner, concealer. When it's all washed away, she lifts her head again and watches the water drip from her chin.

It was a date, and then it wasn't.

But she can't feel badly about the way this day went, because in the end, Angela Candela is alive. A little girl is home.

And Rick Castle is why.

He does have much better stories.

Yang.

 **xxx**

Rick can't say he's necessarily surprised when she calls, it's just that the line between fantasy and reality seems awfully blurred right at this moment.

"Detective," he greets warmly, tucking his cell phone between his ear and shoulder to free his hands for the keyboard. "What do I owe the pleasure?"

"Why did you go home?"

That arrests him. He's intrigued. "Because it's night. And unlike some of us, I do enjoy the comforts of my own bed. Egyptian cotton, 1200 thread count, feels like silk on your skin. Oh, Detective, you wouldn't want to leave."

She snorts and it makes him smirk, easing back into his desk chair.

"No, smartass, why did you leave in the middle of the Candela case just because I asked you to?"

"Exactly."

"What... exactly."

"You asked me to. A little girl was missing. I told you once, I'm not an asshole."

"You said jackass."

"Same difference."

"I assume jackass would cover sticking around the Twelfth just to get Sorenson's goad."

"Not his goat."

"What?" she snaps.

"No, nothing, family joke, makes me chuckle every time. Alexis used to think we were chasing after goats."

"On task here, Castle."

"Yes, ma'am." That's also what she says in his fantasies that involve his sinfully soft sheets. "On task here, getting his goad wasn't top priority. I don't like him, but that's probably just male ego talking."

She falls silent. He waits, the cursor blinking on his document.

But she doesn't even say good-bye.

She hangs up and he's left with Nikki Heat and his own cruel confusion.

Sometimes he has no idea what she wants from him.

(It might be why he's still here.)

 **xxx**


	10. A Death in the Family

**A Death in the Family**

 **xxx**

 _"Most people come up against a wall, they give up. Not you. You don't let go, you don't back down. It's what makes you extraordinary."_

 **xxx**

The day he tells her, it's pouring rain.

The rain falls in sheets over the town car as he sits in the backseat and tries to muster up what he'll say. How he'll say it. What she might do-

He knows what she'll do.

She'll lose it. And he'll lose her.

The _experience_ of her. Because it's not like he has her, just the - it's a friendship. Extraordinary friendship. She _is_ his friend, as hard as it is to fathom, and he'll lose her friendship over this.

He didn't know, he has a hundred excuses, but the rain is pouring so hard now that it batters the roof of the car and drowns out his own thoughts.

For the first time in his life, the pretty words won't come.

He's going to do this badly.

It's going to end badly.

 **xxx**

The world stops.

Muted.

Someone has pressed paused on the remote and everything is arrested.

Kate Beckett stares at the man who - in so many ways - has dropped bombs in her life, and she tries to think.

Tries desperately to think. To scrabble over the bottomless hole that's opened up inside her. A hungry mouth that can't be appeased. Because no matter what she does, it's never enough. Grief can never be filled in.

Her mother's murder. He's looked into her mother's murder. Her mother was _murdered_ and he-

She can't do this.

She absolutely can't fall down this hole again.

Kate Beckett walks away.

 **xxx**

Rick stands with his hands dangling from his sides, and he watches her walk away from him.

When she doesn't turn to Sorenson's hospital room door, when she passes right by it, Castle rouses and chases after her.

"Wait. Beckett." He grabs her by the elbow. "Hang on. Don't you want to know what-"

She flips out of his grip, painfully twisting his forearm. He yelps and she sidesteps, her face like death. "No. Stop. We are done. We're done. This is over."

He's struck dumb. She keeps walking, her hand shaking when she jabs the button for the elevator. It opens at her call, and she steps on, and when she turns to put her back to the wall, her eyes fix on his.

His stomach drops out.

He has never seen-

No one has ever been at once so intense and so overwhelming-

He's not prepared for that level of-

The doors close.

That's it.

Over.

 **xxx**

She walks through the rain.

She's drenched, soaked to the skin with a hard and cold spring shower that darkens the earth. The trees are soaked black, their leaves made vividly green. The buildings are hazed by the curtain of rain, the concrete showing its stains.

She wanders downtown and up, she walks without knowing where. There's a bad taste in her mouth from the donut she ate at the hospital, teasing Sorensen, and even though that's a lifetime away, no matter how she pushes her tongue against her teeth she can't get rid of the aftertaste.

She comes to a stop at a metal bench, some obscure neighborhood park with a swing set and slide, and she sinks down, her hands between her knees and shoulders hunched in the rain.

She bows forward, gulping for air, and she cries, tears in a storm, blending seamlessly.

She can't do this.

She and her father made each other promises. He wouldn't go back to the bottle; she wouldn't go back to the case.

She can't want this.

It has to be over.

She should never have told him.

 **xxx**


End file.
